This Tuesday, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton addressed The Heritage Foundation’s Chicago Community Committee on American Sovereignty Under a Post-American Presidency as part of out Protect America Month. You can read Chicago Committee Chairman Vince Kolber’s introduction below, and watch Bolton’s speech in the video embedded:

It is noteworthy that we have come here today in the Land of Lincoln, when on this very day 150 years ago Lincoln received his party’s nomination a few short blocks from here. We also are in the birth state of Ronald Reagan and without forgetting about that Alinsky- and Jeremiah Wright-inspired current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue – who hails from Hyde Park but a short eight miles drive south of this venue.

So here we are as conservatives in the heart of the very metropolis that produced a national leadership which taxes more, spends much more and dissipates our American strength with an apologetic and an appeasement-based foreign policy. Living in the ZIP code as I do that gave the most money to elect our President, let me tell you it has been pretty lonely.

The good news is that the loneliness is ending. Congratulations to each and everyone of you for making it to this loneliness-busting event as Heritage Chicagoland emerges here in the gut of a leviathan. Heritage membership growth is accelerating across America, encompassing 650,000, but it is particularly exciting that our Chicagoland group numbers are approaching 12,000 — up nearly 44% in just one year. The recent advent of Heritage Action, which gives us a critical advocacy tool kit, could not come at a more necessary moment than now. While Sarah Palin is to be congratulated for asking the Question of the Year– “How is all that hope and change working out for you?” — all of us here today and the 4,000 that gathered a few days ago in Rosemont to hear her are the contrast, the contradiction and indeed the hope we conservatives can bring to culture renewal and support for principled, well- informed government officials. My recent visit to Capitol Hill is all it takes to convince me that Heritage is more necessary now than ever before. Leadership of all stripes in Washington not only need the Heritage values message with solid analytics, some actually crave it. Heritage is our tenacious champion of constrained governance, liberty, the pursuit of happiness without guarantees and peace through a robust national defense. Your generous support of Heritage is greatly appreciated.

So our guest this afternoon is not only relevant to our state of contradiction and contrasts but also timely on a day when Ahmadinejad is on the front page for making a nuclear fuel deal. Ambassador John Bolton served President George W. Bush as Under Secretary of State and then as United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations. It is in these roles that we became most aware of the unique skills of this extraordinary individual who rose to represent we the people in those tumultuous years in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. John Bolton brought careful principle-based analysis to his roles with uncommon clarity and forthrightness as a forceful advocate for America’s global interests. We witnessed these fruits honed and initiated during the Reagan years with distinguished service in Washington leadership roles at the Department of State, the Department of Justice, and the Agency for International Development and the American Enterprise Institute. So it is John Bolton’s decisive, principled, unapologetic approach with peace through strength as its backbone which contrasts the global policy of that Hyde Park elitist whose themes are appeasement, apology, the shunning of longstanding friends. If all those in government and elected office had Ambassador Bolton’s skill and mindset we might not need a Heritage, but I assure you that such is not our prospect. Welcome to Ambassador John Bolton.

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Our current administration is clearly not interested in protecting America. The ideology shown daily is only ONE goal and that is to take over every facet of a free enterprise system and America as We The People know it. We are dealing with people suffering from total delusion! Mr. Bolton knows exactly what he is talking about, but the only ones listening are We The People. Until we unseat the members of the Democratic Socialists of America, the Communists and the Czars, nothing is going to change.

Republican representatives, regardless of whatever fears they have, should stand up and scream at each and every move made by this administration. We The People are watching and are tired of the "political correctness". The fear that Republicans should have is that of We The People.

In the rough and tumble world, there's nothing like respect to pave the path to success. When the olive branch of peace is extended by the country which is held in high respect, it is accepted, and shenanigans are kept to a minimum. Tyrants aren't tempted when there are high odds that they will not be successful against a strong USA. Add to that mix the extension of foreign aid, which has the effect of binding together economies to the mutual benefit of all concerned. Yes, foreign aid is profitable in the long term. It's not just a gift. Back to the issue of respect: When I was growing up, going to high school on a United States Air Force Base in Europe, I had imprinted on my mind the motto of the Strategic Air Command: Peace Is Our Profession. We would be wise to remember that today.

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